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Video: Union Protest Outside FreedomWorks HQ

Yesterday, a large group of unions including AFSCME, NEA, SEUI, AFT and ATU protested outside FreedomWorks HQ in DC. We were cussed at and called names. A Jewish member of FreedomWorks staff was called a "bad jew." Here is a video I took of the protest:

It is illegal to sell a muffin to your neighbor in the state of Wisconsin. Cookies, cakes, and breads are all banned too. In fact, selling these items is a crime punishable by up to $1,000 in fines and six months in jail.

In recent years, the topic of unionization and right-to-work laws has been raised as a fairly contentious issue. As state legislatures sought to recoup the costs incurred due to lost revenue following the Great Recession, de-unionization policies, at least at the public sector level, were floated as cost-cutting measures. But nearly as often, right-to-work laws at the private sector level were also explored and implemented, perhaps most infamously in the case of the state of Wisconsin under Governor Scott Walker.

When the so-called "public option" single-payer healthcare program was scrapped during the legislative "debate" over ObamaCare in 2009, lawmakers working on the bill created the Consumer Operated and Oriented Plan Program as a compromise. The non-profit co-op program is meant to compete with private, for-profit health insurance plans in the individual and small group markets. The 2010 healthcare law provided $3.4 billion in start-up funding to help get the program off the ground.

As Scott Walker tours the country on his campaign for the presidency, he has not forsaken his state, turning in a budget that would make important reforms in education policy. It’s beyond the scope of this piece to analyze the budget in full - it contains rather more spending and borrowing than most conservatives would like - but in the area of education reform it takes some pretty important steps forward.

As Ohio moves closer to repealing Common Core education standards, Wisconsin looks like it could be next in line. The State Senate Majority Leader, Scott Fitzgerald, has said that tackling Common Core is definitely on the agenda for next year’s legislative session. Fitzgerald has yet to offer any specific proposals, but it’s safe to assume that the changes will be more in line with the school choice platform that Governor Scott Walker ran on to win reelection.

WHAT: A group of Mississippi FreedomWorks activists will protest Sen. Thad Cochran’s support of the Export-Import Bank at two of his district offices on Tuesday, August 19. Senator Cochran supports the re-authorization of the Ex-Im bank and the wasting of billions in taxpayer dollars.

I don’t want to shock our readers but, occasionally, liberals can be inconsistent. They can be, if one dares use the term, hypocritical. This latest example came to my attention as I was researching a recent piece on the case the Supreme Court is hearing with regards to unions.

Things aren’t looking so good for big unions in the United States. School choice has teachers’ unions running scared and right to work is, well, working. As unions lose their strongholds around the country, they are looking for more ways to shore up their power. An upcoming case at the Supreme Court, though, might chip away at said power even more.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker appeared on Fox News' Huckabee show to explain that Republicans shouldn't challenge incumbents in primaries until their party controls Congress. Incumbent job security generates voter apathy, and leads to the kind of government we see in our country today. Primary challenges are a way of letting elected officials know that they still have people to answer to, and challenges should be welcome in every election cycle.

For many teachers, their job is a calling. It is what they love to do, a profession for which they have worked and studied, and at which they want to continue. What happens, then, when a good teacher is forced to give money to a group which she opposes in order to keep her job? In the case of California’s Rebecca Friedrichs, she is fighting back.